730 CORPORATIONS. [ART. 23

engage or participate in the transportation of passengers, freight or
property between points within the State until its schedules of rates,
fares and charges shall have been filed and published in accordance with
the provisions of this sub-title. No common carrier shall charge,
demand, collect or receive a greater or less or different compensation
for transportation of passengers, freight or property, or for any service
in connection therewith, than the rates, fares and charges applicable to
such transportation as specified in its schedules filed and in effect at
the time; nor shall any such common carrier refund or remit in any
manner, or by any device, any portion of the rates, fares or charges so
specified, nor extend to any shipper or person any privileges or facili-
ties in the transportation of passengers or property except such as are
regularly and uniformly extended to all persons and corporations under
like circumstances. No common carrier subject to the provisions of this
sub-title shall, directly or indirectly, issue or give any free tickets, free
pass or free transportation for passengers or property between points
within this State, except to its officers, employees, agents, pensioners,
surgeons, physicians, attorneys-at-law and their families; to ministers
of religion, inmates of hospitals, charitable and eleemosynary institu-
tions and persons exclusively engaged in charitable and eleemosynary
work; and to indigent, destitute and homeless persons, and to such
persons when transported by charitable societies or hospitals, and the
necessary agents employed in such transportation; to inmates of the
national homes or State homes for disabled volunteer soldiers and of
soldiers' and sailors' homes, including those about to enter and those
returning home after discharge, and boards of managers of such homes;
to necessary caretakers in transit; to employees of sleeping-car com-
panies, express companies, telephone and telegraph companies doing
business along the line of the issuing carrier; to railway mail service
employees, post-office inspectors, custom inspectors, and immigration
inspectors; to newsboys on trains, baggage agents; persons injured in
accidents or wrecks, and physicians and nurses attending such persons;
to the carriage, free or at reduced rates, of persons or property for the
United States, State or municipal governments, or of the property to or
from fairs and expositions for exhibit thereat; or the transportation,
free, of any property as is provided by law. Nothing in this sub-title
shall be construed to prohibit the interchange of free or reduced trans-
portation between common carriers of or for their officers, agents,
employees, attorneys and surgeons and their families, nor to pro-
hibit any common carrier from carrying passengers or property
free with the object of providing relief in cases of general epidemic,
pestilence or other calamitous visitation; nor to prohibit any common
carrier from transporting persons or property as incident to or con-
nected with contracts for construction, operation or maintenance, and
to the extent only that such free transportation is provided for in the
contract for such work; nor to prevent any common carrier from trans-
porting children under five years of age free.